


Let the Unpredicted and Inevitable Unfold

by MK_Morreaux



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Bittersweet Ending, Cannibalism, Dark Will Graham, F/F, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Freddie Was Right, Hannibal's Wishes Come True, Jack's Instincts, M/M, Murder Bucket List, Murder Husbands, POV - Jack Crawford, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Series, murder spree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 21:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MK_Morreaux/pseuds/MK_Morreaux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>An Alternative Ending to WotL </i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jack Crawford watched and rewatched the video from Dolarhyde's camera. And still, he could not predict what would happen next. He wasn't Will Graham. Will Graham had made his decision, and now Jack would have to deal with the consequences of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let the Unpredicted and Inevitable Unfold

**Author's Note:**

> This is the very first time I'm writing for the _Hannibal_ fandom. I didn't mean to, as I have an on-going story in another fandom and drafts for a collection of original stories to polish for publication, but this would not leave me alone for the last two weeks. It started as a challenge to myself to use different tenses in storytelling, and evolved from there.
> 
> It may interest readers to know that this was pieced together in two weeks while (1) on a plane, (2) riding two different trains, (3) in a hotel business center, and (4) on a river cruise. In short, I was channeling the murder-husbands-on-the-run while doing this story. This story has NOT been beta'd so if there are any errors, do let me know.

Seventeen times. Jack had watched and rewatched the video seventeen times. He could close his eyes and recreate the entire series of events from memory with more accuracy than he had ever wished for. Was this how Will had felt, piecing things together in his mind from just looking at the aftermath of a crime scene? Will wasn’t here, though, and Jack’s limited imagination was heavily supplemented by an actual recording of what had transpired.

It did not help matters that Will was _in_ the video. The vaguest suggestion of allowing him a plea for plausible deniability would be enough to get even the slowest rookie policeman suspended for at least a week.

Still, an eighteenth viewing of the clip – perhaps there was something that Jack had missed.

The clip started with a wobbly view alternating between the leg of a miniature tripod and the fallen form of Hannibal Lecter on the floor, propped up against a chair. Blood seeped through his shirt to mingle with broken glass and the dark patterns of wine from a broken bottle nearby. The sight was haunting in its utter calmness. The closest metaphor that the weary old agent could come up with was that this was what it was like to be standing in the eye of a storm.

Jack had read the forensic reports from the scene; the blood splatter and glass on the ground confirmed that Hannibal had been shot from behind and that the bullet had gone right through his body to break the wine bottle he had likely been holding until that point. The transcript of the entire video lay on the desk by his elbow and the conversation between the Red Dragon and the Chesapeake Ripper followed the old and familiar conversation patterns Jack had all but engraved in the back of his mind. What was more interesting was the way that Hannibal’s eyes shifted from where Dolarhyde stood to where it was assumed Will had placed himself instead.

The conversation came to a stop and, off-screen, the sounds of Will struggling and in pain shot out like thunder in the clip’s audio. Somehow the tripod fell on its side and the video camera clattered to the ground in time to catch Will’s body sailing through the air and onto the dim-lit cliffside. Jack had thought that this had been Will’s end, since the raised patio meant that the rocky ground beyond it couldn’t be seen. Dolarhyde jumped onto the ground just as a hint of Will’s back came into view, and then a desperate knife battle commenced. Will had a history of difficulty in reacting correctly in a fight, the reason he had come to work for the bureau being his inability to defend himself properly from a criminal assailant. His gun range scores showed nothing but sloppiness and hesitation. The man grappling with the Dragon on the cliffside was his mirror negative. This was the Will that Jack had never wanted to consider existing, this was what the remains of Randall Tier should have told him all those years ago. The knife wounds grew progressively bloodier as they circled and struggled with each other. It was clear who had the upper hand; Dolarhyde, with all his training, was angling for an easy kill.

Should it have come as a surprise that it was at the very moment that Will came closest to death that Hannibal’s leg appeared on-screen? Injured as he was, he leaped onto Dolarhyde’s back with all the precision of a practiced hunter. The years he’d spent in BSHCI had done little to weaken his predatory instincts, yet he was not enough to tip the scales wholly in Will’s favor.

For the weeks that Jack had been hunting the Dragon, formerly known as the Tooth Fairy, all the reports and Will’s insights had pointed towards impressive physical strength on top of tactical training. When Jack had been in college, he’d taken a trip down to Florida to see the bull rides in the rodeos near Key West. Dolarhyde reminded him of a savage bull tossing about two hapless rodeo clowns in his fury, an animal enraged and drunk on power it _knew_ it could use to lethal effect. The fight still had only one conceivable end.

The print-outs of the video frames didn’t provide enough clues to indicate the exact moment that the tides started to shift out of Dolarhyde’s favor. Hannibal seemed unable to get up the final time he was thrown down, and it was Will’s turn to attack the Dragon from behind. The image of a bull tossing around two injured clowns gave way to that of an ordinary mortal man caught between the savage fury of Scylla and the inexorable hungry maw of Charybdis.

After all this time, it sounded to Jack like Hannibal’s voice was still whispering in the back of his mind, informing and influencing that classicist impression. But there was no other way to put it. What Dr. Du Maurier called the human veil had been ripped away and the monsters cowering beneath stood roaring in full gory glory. Seventeen viewings past and an eighteenth one ongoing, Jack still hadn’t become desensitized to the brutality of Will using a knife to all but claw right into Dolarhyde’s stomach while Hannibal outright ripped their prey’s throat with his teeth. When they finally released him, the resulting blood splatter glinted in the moonlight.

Hannibal helped Will up and they held each other, mutual crutches in the face of injury and blood loss. They stood close to the cliffside, possibly not more than two feet from the edge. The transcript picked up again at this point. The audio of the clip Jack had wasn’t enhanced, but he had read the full transcript enough times to know what was being said.

_W.G.: It really does look black in the moonlight._

_H.L.: See. This is all I ever wanted for you, Will. For both of us._

_W.G.: It's beautiful._

Every single time that Jack watched the video, he wished that he would find this part of it had been miraculously changed, that time could have reversed to correct what he saw as a horrific error. Jack wished that he’d had a glass of scotch at his side the first time he’d watched what had _really_ happened. Now, the eighteenth time, he wished he had a whole bottle of the good stuff.

Too far for the video camera to produce a clear image of their faces, it seemed that Will and Hannibal were carrying out a whole conversation solely with their eyes. It was easy to call to mind the days when they had both been consulting for the BAU, standing on either side of an operating table or a few steps from one another at a crime scene. They’d had their own little world back then, where Hannibal had been the only one able to properly anchor Will when he had been fever-deep in a reconstruction and where Will had been the only one able to keep up with Hannibal’s increasingly obscure metaphors and involved analyses. No daunting leap need be made from that to true nonverbal communication.

For the eighteenth time, Jack watched as Will tugged Hannibal even closer and sealed their lips together in a quiet kiss. It lasted nearly a full minute, but little more than their heads and arms shifted in the unbroken closeness – and yet there could be no doubt about their mutual ardor and reverence. They held each other like they were simultaneously certain that they would vanish into thin air if they let go and that they would break into several hundred pieces of glass should they hold on just a little too tight. Jack could not recall ever having held Bella that way, ever bearing firsthand witness and participating in that sort of all-consuming devotional touch. It was almost a mercy that the video recording had not gotten a closer or sharper view of what transpired.

Hannibal said something, but even the most advanced audio enhancement software the FBI had access to could not decipher what he had whispered right against Will’s lips. It signaled the end of the moment, though, a slow parting that only allowed them to better arrange their limbs to assist each other back towards the patio and the cottage interior.

At what point should this possibility have occurred to anyone in the bureau? For all his reclusiveness, Will had given ample evidence of his exclusive interest in women. Nothing in his records existed to contradict it. Hannibal, despite his deep – expertly feigned – concerns for Will, had never directed anything more than a persistent hand in friendship towards the FBI profiler. And yet, and yet, and yet! A more thorough inspection of Hannibal’s interest in Will could be definitively diagnosed as obsession; Will had admitted that a part of him had wanted to run away with Hannibal. (How big a part, truly?) Will had crossed the Atlantic to find his former psychiatrist, the only one successful in finding him despite the manhunt the FBI had orchestrated; Hannibal had claimed that he had only let himself be brought into custody because it allowed his former patient to be able to find him whenever he’d next want to. Over the years, Hannibal had become more and more open about the singlemindedness he was capable of where Will Graham was concerned. And Will’s loyalties had always been obscure whenever plans had involved Hannibal Lecter.

Freddie Lounds would gloat that she’d all but predicted this happening. It was one of the reasons the bureau had decided not to release even a fraction of the recovered video clip to the press.

Forensics had made a preliminary tally of their injuries based on the footage: Will had a wide stab wound in one cheek, another in one of his shoulders with possible accompanying partial dislocation, ribs that were at the very least bruised, and what could be the beginnings of a sprain in his left ankle; a bullet had most definitely passed through Hannibal’s right side, back to front – just barely missing vital organs, likely – and blood flowed freely from a wound in his head, though some of the redness along the lower half of his face could be attributed to the moment when he had ripped out Dolarhyde’s throat.

For all the damage and blood loss, the two men had made it into the house without incident. Will tried to make Hannibal sit down on a couch just barely in the lens frame of the video camera. Somehow, the doctor convinced him of the reverse, pushing the profiler down onto the cushions and hobbling off-screen himself. Not a single word had been exchanged between them since the cliffside kiss.

Hannibal stayed out of sight for a long time, and the camera had a chance to focus solely on Will, who was slowly turning paler and paler by the moment. His eyes were unfocused, glazed. Someone unfamiliar with his quirks would think that he was succumbing to the blood loss, but Jack knew that look. Will was watching the pendulum swing, piecing together for himself the gravity of what had been done. What he and Hannibal had done.

Slowly, he started tracing his right index finger over his left hand. For a long moment, it seemed that was all he was going to do until Hannibal returned to his side or he slid into unconsciousness. Was it physical pain that flashed across his face for a moment, or something deeper and more emotional? Was he starting to regret what had transpired? For a moment, he seemed to curl in on himself, shivering in his seat. And then something changed. He yanked off his wedding ring.

The transcript supplied what the audio could barely pick up from his lips.

_W.G.: This is my design._

He stood on wobbly feet, going to lay the ring on the table. There was something very final about the clang of metal on wood.

Hannibal reappeared onscreen with a medical kit in hand. He’d discarded his jacket and washed his face and hands, the paleness from the blood loss more glaringly obvious than before, but he was steadier on his feet than he had been at the cliffside. He moved to pull Will against him, to rest their heads together perhaps, despite the blood still on the other man’s face, in some form of comfort and support.

Or he would have, had Will’s attention not snapped in the direction of the camera. He left Hannibal where he stood, going onto his knees to pick up the device. The screen swayed and shook, but managed to get a good look at the darkened blood stains on his shirt, the length of the clotting scar on his cheek. The view turned in a shaky 180 degrees, taking in the more pristine and undisturbed parts of the cottage. For one brief moment, the exact area where Dolarhyde had stabbed Will in the cheek came into view.

“It seems there will inadvertently be witnesses to what transpired,” Hannibal observed off-screen, his voice unmistakable even while hoarse from their ordeal.

“Only with our…permission,” Will replied. By compare, his voice was steely, like a newly-sharpened blade.

“And is this what it is, Will? Our permission?”

“It would be remiss of us to leave the authorities hanging.”

The screen swiveled around, rising a little bit higher, Will apparently getting to his feet at the same time. He appeared back in the video, staring unflinchingly down at the lens; he didn’t even react when Hannibal walked up behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“By authorities, you mean dear Uncle Jack,” the old psychiatrist said, tone disinterested but eyes keen. “I suppose we do owe him that much.”

“Don’t come looking for us,” Will said into the camera in lieu of replying to his companion. “The Dragon will remain here for you to find, but this is where it ends.”

“Adieu, old friend,” Hannibal added, the barest hint of fondness and triumph on his lips. “Adieu over au revoir.”

Will’s smile was more visible, if not more somber. “Bye Jack.”

That was where the video stopped.

Forensics had a good estimate of how much longer after the recording the pair stayed at the safe house based on the injuries seen in the video. Every crime scene that had involved the Chesapeake Ripper before had been wiped clean of all evidence. There had been no way to properly connect the Ripper to the Copy-Cat Killer either. Dozens of other different crimes all involving Hannibal Lecter could not have been connected to him without his own word. This time, a different sort of evidence wipe-down had taken place. Despite the astounding blood loss and sheer damage done to the two surviving men, despite the presence of Dolarhyde’s corpse left exactly where it had fallen by the cliffside, the wedding ring on the side table, and the video camera with a near-complete cataloguing of the fighting, there was no indication of where Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham could have gone.

Seventy-two hours ago, based on the police car recording, Francis Dolarhyde had killed an entire armed escort and allowed Will time to help Hannibal escape the transport vehicle using one of the then-abandoned vehicles. Approximately sixty-five hours ago, Will and Hannibal had gone to one of the latter’s safe-houses along the cliffs of Chesapeake Bay, where they had been tracked down by Dolarhyde. The recorded struggle lasted for about ten minutes, ending in Dolarhyde’s death and in Will and Hannibal’s state of near-fatal injury. The remaining twelve minutes of the video showed the two survivors about to patch themselves up, leaving a subtle warning of what would happen should attempts be made to locate them.

Today, Jack had no leads to follow and no word from the higher-ups in the bureau whether or not they would authorize a full-force manhunt.

Three weeks from now, he would pay a visit to Bedelia Du Maurier’s safe-house and find her finely-dressed corpse sitting wide-eyed at the head of a lavish dining table, an oyster fork jammed into the side of her neck and the roasted remains of her own left leg rotting on a silver platter in front of her. Price and Zeller would tell him that she had traces of a sedative cocktail in her system and that the amputation had been performed with surgical efficiency and neatness. They would determine she’d been dead for two days before their arrival on the scene. Spoiled though it was now, the remains of her leg would prove to have been cooked in a sort of luau style, a conclusion furthered by the presence of the pineapple garnishes and the empty oyster half-shells in a wide bowl of tepid water that had served as an appetizer-cum-side dish. Aside from the late Dr. Du Maurier’s plate, still nearly full at the time of her death, there would be two pristine table settings flanking hers to the left and the right. Price and Zeller would tell him that the entire display had been carefully deliberate, the only thing marring that image being the oyster fork lodged solidly in the side of her throat.

“It was a rushed job,” Price would remark. “But we can’t tell much else, given that the table cloth smells like it’s been recently washed and there’s not a speck of blood left on the floor. We’ve swept the place with a luminol spray and UV light and everything’s squeaky clean. Stab was pretty forceful, though.”

“Angry, more likely,” Zeller would amend. “Maybe Le – er, Gra – _the killer_ hadn’t meant to stab her, but something changed.”

The final report would reflect no DNA in the entire house that did not belong to the deceased psychiatrist. The possibility of the murder being carried out by Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham, or both of them together would be a heavy suspicion, but not an iron-clad conclusion. And there would still be no clue as to where the runaway pair could have gone at that point.

A call from Alana would set Jack further on edge four days later. His old friend and colleague would not tell him where she and her family were and would assure him that the number she was using was untraceable, but the story she would relay was another matter entirely.

“The writing on the envelope’s in Hannibal’s hand,” she would tell him, words clipped and edgy. “I’d recognize his calligraphy anywhere. The letter, though – it’s all Will. I’d say he was coerced into writing it himself, but I know what he sounds like, Jack. Margot’s scanning and emailing you a copy of both the letter and the envelope right now, and we’ll send the actual evidence to you within the week.”

When Jack would finally get his hands on the envelope and the letter inside, he would be forced to echo Alana’s opinion. Even without the handwriting analysis, he’d know the two distinct styles anywhere. What he only truly would be forced to believe upon finishing the letter was the reality that Hannibal and Will worked together now. An accord had been reached in the weeks since the video at the cliffside. The letter, short and to the point, would clearly hammer it home.

_Alana,_

_By the time you read this letter, you’ll likely have heard from Jack about Bedelia’s passing. I told her what to expect even before I set the events of the last few weeks in motion. Consider this your own personal notice._

_Hannibal made you a promise and I pointed out that he never really set himself a deadline. The time will come that we both turn up at your doorstep, but I won’t be there to stop him from keeping his word. Years ago, you commented on the ever-changing nature of our relationship; the answer Hannibal and I gave you then is the same as it is today. And this time, I have no more secrets from him and he has none from me, in return. Our mind palaces have not so much become connected as merged into one. Despite of and because of everything we’ve done to each other these last few years, ours is finally a marriage of true minds. Wouldn’t Freddie find that quote print-worthy?_

_The Devil will take his due and nothing more. Consider it a gift from us, not to you or to Margot, but to your toddler son._

_Your old friend,_

_Will_

The only identifiers of the senders would be the style of the pen strokes and the possible origin of the fine cream-colored stationary.

Needless to say, Alana and her family would move on to find somewhere more remote and secure to escape the predator (predators?) waiting in the wings.

All Jack would have would be a vague hunch about what would happen next, one that he wouldn’t even follow because of how farfetched it was. Wherever the letter’s origin was, it could not be from anywhere within the United States.

Freddie Lounds would prove him wrong, three months after the events at the cliffside. And she would do it by bearing him eight delicate little chicken lollipops in a ceramic container cradled in her own heavily-bandaged, fingerless hands. The appetizer bites would smell heavenly with the promise of authentic Indian spices, cooked to a mouthwateringly perfect golden orange, proof of the deft hands that had shaped them. Jack would curse himself for weeks for not trusting his instincts.

“They ate my thumbs in front of me,” Freddie would say in the interview room, nausea breaking through the deadness of her voice. “I came home to my apartment late last night and the next thing I knew, it after twelve noon today and Will Graham was waking me up to say that Dr. Lecter was making us all a light _snack_. I declined to join them, so they packed up the leftovers for me.”

She would claim that she had bartered for her life with her silence during the visit and an agreement that she would not leave her apartment until two hours after they’d left. She would claim that neither fugitive would come back to take more from her as long as she behaved. Having _only_ her fingers taken was certainly no enviable prize.

“Graham’s making his own puns now,” she would chuckle hollowly when prompted to guess where they would go next. “Lecter was suggesting additional visits while they were – or are – in the area and he said ‘Frederick’s too burnt out to make a good host’.”

The trail would go completely cold at that point. Even with the death of Dr. Du Maurier and the butchery done to Freddie, there wouldn’t be enough evidence anywhere to call for an active response. The names and photos of Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham would remain on the FBI Most Wanted List for years to come, but nothing else would be done unless the Verger-Blooms came out of hiding and the bureau could gather a testimony more reliable than that of a shady tabloid writer. The single letter to Alana couldn’t be taken for anything more than the vaguest of confessions and unspecific threats.

Four years after the murder of the serial killer known as the Red Dragon, Jack would be forced by the bureaucracy to leave active duty and take up a teaching post in Quantico, seeing a physiatrist to help him move on with his life sans paranoia. He would resort to a clandestine but dogged watch, scouring world news and inter-agency databases for clues – utterly alone.

He would stumble upon a lead by sheer luck.

A young Argentinian couple would be sitting at the bar of one of the small lounges near his house and, in the midst of their happy vacation banter, they would briefly touch upon the topic of a psychology lecturer at the girl’s university. They would speak enough English – perhaps practicing during their visit to the States – to ring the warning bells in Jack’s mind.

“…And _el profesor guapo_ Williamson definitely looks like he would fit in here!” the woman would gush between sips of her beer.

“I start to worry about _su enamoramiento_ , _querida_!” her companion, more likely her boyfriend than her husband, would tease. “He is married, _recuerda_? And I would have thought that scar on his face would have discouraged you! It makes him _desfigurado._ ”

It would be the weakest of hints, but Jack would never again doubt his instincts after what had happened to Freddie Lounds. He would approach the couple who introduced themselves as Emilio and Luisa and, with a few rounds of drinks and friendly chatter about the locality, he would learn a bit about Professor Michael Williamson, a part-time lecturer in the psychology department of Irene’s college. He would learn that the American professor was happily married to an Estonian general practitioner in one of the local hospitals, a certain Dr. Kaspars Dvarionas. Luisa would defend Professor Williamson’s facial scar, saying that it was rude to talk about it and that it simply added character. Emilio would laugh off his jealous display and suggest he simply found them too perfect to be real: having adopted two stray dogs about to be put down by animal control, making regular appearances at functions and events in and around the university and art galleries, taking the occasional holiday into the countryside for fishing or hunting in exclusive lodges, holding lavish dinners and soirees for a select few friends and colleagues.

“They apparently cook most of the food _themselves_ ,” he would end his description of their impossible flawlessness. “I’ve heard it said that Dr. Dvarionas is… _un virtuoso en la cocina._ ”

Without informing the bureau, Jack would make arrangements to book a flight to Cordoba, Argentina to see for himself if he was reading signs where none existed. But he would never even get to file for a short leave of absence in preparation for that trip. One night, walking to his car in the Quantico parking lot after a late night grading papers, a ballistic hunting bullet would go through his chest mere centimeters below his heart.

“I cannot allow you to do what you are planning, Jack Crawford.”

Looking up at the dark shadows beneath the trees at the edge of the parking lot, Jack would catch sight of a woman he had not seen in so many years, and even then, only for a handful of minutes.

“You’re Hannibal’s…friend…” he would struggle to get out, leaning against the side of his old black sedan, a retiree’s car for a man who did not know how to retire after everything that had happened in the last handful of years. “…He sent you?”

The woman, distinctly of Asian descent, would shift further out of the shadows but not far enough for the darkness of her attire to truly break from their concealing embrace. From where he would sprawl, clutching at the bullet hole leaking life slowly out of his body, Jack would not be able to tell if the cold sobriety of her expression was detachment or a consuming sort of pity.

“I am ending it here. _They_ may be content to let you flounder on for many more months and years, but it would be out of cruelty, not kindness. I came here to spare you in the most expedient way possible.”

They. Not he. Perhaps it had always, in a twisted way, been ‘they’.

The woman – he would never know if she was merely an accomplice, an ex-lover, or a particular friend – would come over to crouch at Jack’s side. “This is not the freedom you wanted, but perhaps, it is a freedom you can be offered that you would not reach for yourself.”

Jack would resign himself, then and there, that he would not finish his quest. He would have to let others, in years to come, take up his fight and perhaps bring the conjoined monsters down.

“Drift slowly and peacefully, Jack Crawford, into your final sleep. _Sayonara._ ”

And he would know no more.

**Author's Note:**

> Why Jack's perspective? It seemed to me the most logical outsider one to use to muse about the possibilities presented by the post-credits scene with Bedelia. The change to the cliffside ending, I just HAD to do it. After all, in the deleted scenes in my DVD, Mads and Hugh nearly DID kiss. And in the interviews, Fuller said that they went above and beyond what was expected, haha... 
> 
> As does every author on this site, I would adore reading comments from you readers. It may just help fuel the other Hannibal ideas kicking around in different states of development in my head - and maybe make me finish that other fandom story of mine faster so I can work on cannibalistic ones here. Either way, I would like to hear your thoughts about my short little what-if alternate-finale post-series creation.


End file.
